Israel is accused of killing 37 Palestinians, with no mention of the fact that almost all of them were terrorists on active duty, some on their way to launch rockets at Israel.  The report likewise accuses Israel of the mass killing of Syrians during two protests in May and June, without clarifying what those Syrians would have done to Jewish villagers had they not been stopped at the border with bullets.

Hamas and Fatah are tellingly accused of unfair trials and torture—in effect, of cracking down on their own terrorists who have veered out of control. The HRW mentioned hundreds of rocket attacks on Israel, which cannot be ignored, but preferred to miss the much more massive and lethal grassroots terrorism, including daily attacks on Jewish cars with rocks and firebombs.

We remember the outcry of three years ago, when they were fired in the opposite direction. Since then, the Arabs have fired white phosphorus shells at Israel more than a dozen times, but who has heard about that abroad?

Both sides can easily bring this conflict to a political resolution: the Arabs by sending suicide bombers, and Israel by massive bombing of their installations in Gaza. Nevertheless, leaders on both sides are comfortable with a simmering conflict that distracts their populations from real problems.

In the long run, the conflict is bound to flare up. Empirically, countries tend to settle important conflicts with either diplomacy or war, not sporadic violence—which grows unchecked and eventually explodes.

It would be nice for the IDF to clarify how many rockets the Iron Dome can deal with simultaneously—in reality, not in theory.

On the other hand, Hamas apparently had no shortage of cement for its bunkers, as evidenced by the hundreds of miles of tunnels it built into the Strip to prepare for the next war with us.

The Israeli response was typically meaningless—bombing a tunnel that was “intended for kidnapping.” Hey, if you guys knew about such a tunnel, why did you not destroy it before?

It is worth remembering that Dichter supported Sharon’s ill-fated withdrawal from Gaza five years ago. But how can a person so well informed be so silly as to suggest that Israeli occupation can rid Gaza of terrorists? We failed to do just that in Lebanon for eighteen years, and our success in the West Bank has been very limited, punctuated time and again by intifadas, grassroots terrorism, and Hamas activity.

Meanwhile, Israel has re-opened land crossings with Gaza despite a Jew being killed by a Grad rocket.

Ehud Barak once warned Hamas not to test Israeli resolve. Nothing to test, really.

The government still refuses to declare a state of war with Gaza, treating it instead as merely a hostile territory. Even that became a misnomer with the opening of Rafah Crossing and the lifting of the blockade.

And so the Israeli population is ordered to stay close to bomb shelters while Gazans walk about freely, knowing full well that silly Jews only strike terrorists and empty shacks.